Burlington's Community Sailing Center teaches the art and sport of sailing, but the center's mission goes farther.

"Which is to get people out on the lake, and through getting people out on the lake for recreational opportunities, to help create lake stewards, people who have a personal relationship with the lake and so want to protect it and keep it as environmentally sound as possible," said the Community Sailing Center's program director Nick Neverisky.

The center seeks to connect students with the lake, and give them a more concrete understanding of its dynamics.

"So when students come down to the lake we have them doing hands-on science, we have them sampling water off the dock for different chemicals and different contents that might affect the lake health and explore why it might affect the lake health. To talk about how those chemicals got there we have them building watershed models themselves and doing experiments," said Neverisky.

The Community Sailing Center was impressive enough for Jane's Trust, a fund that champions education, the environment, wellness and culture, to award the Sailing Center a $75,000 grant.

"This is the biggest grant that the sailing center has ever received in its history," Neverisky said. "It will help people to sail, it will help people to learn the environmental science behind the lake and the lake care, it will also go to help under-served youth gain leadership skills that they can take back to their community."

It's at the core of what the Sailing Center sets out to do, not only teaching people to sail but helping them grow and better understand Lake Champlain.

"Can we get these kids to find the answers for themselves, can we get them to build inquiring minds, and hopefully through this and exposure to this resource they'll not only know that it exists and that we need to protect it, but have some sort of sense of how things work," said Neverisky. "We really do believe that understanding and personal relationships are the first step in building lake stewards and in protecting this resource."

Go to http://communitysailingcenter.org/ for more information on the Sailing Center.